Ground Command - Star Wars: Legion

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Battle Report - Garm's Dumpster Fire vs Mon Mothma

Recently Biggs and I had a bit of a long back and forth about designing a Garm fleet that used the admiral's flexibility to have a fleet with some strong gunnery backed up by some bombers. You can read the thought process HERE.

Life intervened a bit, but I finally got a version of the fleet on the table and wanted to share with you all how the game went. I ended up against a buddy's Mon Mothma fleet that had something of a similar strategy, with a bomber wing supporting TRC equipped CR-90s.

This gave us the chance to play out a classic EU Rebel Grudge Match. Who should have the right to lead the Rebellion, the Senator from Chandrilla or Space Dad from Corellia? Read on to find out!

Biggs and I called this fleet Garm's Dumpster Fire as it really does use a few of the ships that are considered the weakest in the Rebel Fleet, plus Admonition and some Y-Wings. The hope is that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". The fleet works by combining the consistency given by Intensify Firepower! with some maneuverability that is used to setup over lapping fire arcs and some bombers for support. It seems fun in theory anyways.

There are a handful of differences between this fleet and the version that Biggs and I initially came up with. first, it turned out that I don't actually have 6 Y-Wings. So, I swapped in a pair of A-Wings. Then I couldn't find my copy of Boosted Comms. So, I added in the Phoenix Home title and a Skilled First Officer. The title would give me a better chance to pool up tokens to feed to IF!

My buddy brought a Mothma fleet with:

AF Mk IIb
Mothma
Flight Controllers
Boosted Comms
H9 Turbolasers

3x CR-90a
TRCs

GR75
Bright Hope
BCC

2 X-wing
2 Y-Wing
2 Scurrg
2 Z-95

Setup

We both had exactly 400 points and I won the coin flip. Seeing myself out-activated I opted for 1st player so that I could escape any trouble at the start of the turn. Given the choice of Opening Salvo, Planetary ion Cannon, and Superior Positions I went with Opening Salvo. I felt like Salvation would have fun with that one.

We both deployed to try an outflank each other

I deployed my AF first and then the rest of my deployments were based on how he reacted to that deployment. As he deployed to my left, Salvation was set to the right to come in as a late game finisher. The rest of my fleet was set to the left of the AF and inside its planned strafing run.

Turn 1

I thought I was being clever deploying behind that debris field, but I ended up not being able to get around it easily, even with a Nav command. So, 2 damage right off the bat due to not playing with a space potato in awhile. Otherwise, we just kinda moved forward setting up our formations.

End of Turn 1

Turn 2

This turn had me at a disadvantage as I would have to move into his guns and squads due to his activation advantage. Knowing I wouldn't get many shots off I opted to not trigger IF! this turn and conserve my tokens. Admo was eventually forced to move into range and took some shots from both the AF and a couple of Scurrgs. It stripped some shields and even snuck a hull damage in. I knew I would be taking some long range shots the next round and wanted to conserve my defense tokens.

Knowing I would go fist next turn, I set my squads where they could be easily moved early in round 3.

End of Turn 2

Turn 3

After triggering IF!, I activated the Pelta first and moved the A-Wings and a Y-Wing in to tie up and damage his bombers. They started out of Toryn Farr range, but the Pelta moved up and got her in range for future squadron combat. He responded by activating his AF to move in the X-Wings boosted by Flight Controllers. He was able to one-shot one of the A-Wings, although it countered back.

I decided to move in Admo and try to setup the double arc on his AF for the top of the next turn. Before it went it flakked with help from Toryn and dropped 7 points of damage across the opposing squadrons. The CR-90s used Opening Salvo to rail on Admo and it survived the turn with just one hull, 2 shields in the rear, and no defense tokens. Not good. The rest of the turn just saw more jockeying for position.

Turn 4

I totally forgot the between turn picture here. Oh well. I triggered IF! and then activated Admo. I did some solid damage out the front arc thanks to Admo's OS token. Unfortunately, I had just missed the double arc and wasn't able to follow up with the side shot! I was still able to throw the side arc at Bright Hope and got the needed accuracy to wide it out. Admo jumped past the AF, but was easily killed by it the following activation.

Just after Admo died in a blaze of glory.

Thanks to Toryn Farr the squad game started going heavily in my favor. The Pelta took some long range fire from the CR-90s, but was doing okay. Salvation was late to the party, but setting up for an attack run on the CR-90s. It did take a hit to the side from a Y-Wing as well.

End of Turn 4

Turn 5

I topped my ships off with a fresh set of Garm tokens and triggered IF! again. I started with the Pelta and had it use a Squad token to activate all 4 of my remaining squads. I had the AF in my front arc, but didn't need the shot as 2 Y-Wings were able to finish the job. Salvation took a hit to the side, but was able to wipe out a CR-90 with its first (and only shot). (My 4-year old rolled the dice on that one and ended up with 9 damage and an accuracy!!)

I messed up moving Salvation after this and exposed its weak side to the last CR-90. It was then able to use its OS token and was able to finish Salvation after ramming it.

Turn 6

The AF activated first and with some help from Gunnery Teams it was able to take out both of the remaining CR-90s.

End of the Game (That CR-90 is dead and just set to the side)

Parting Shots

Fun game and a good win. Each part of the fleet contributed although I might have had my lost ships survive with some better flying.

IF! was just amazing and made it so that I had solid consistent attacks all day. Garm/Ahsoka made it really easy to feed tokens to.

I hadn't played with Toryn Farr in a really long time. I'd forgotten just how amazing she is. She is absolutely the reason I won the squad battle in this game.

Salvation only had one shot, but made it count. I was able to kill a CR-90 that otherwise would have escaped the AF and Pelta. It did the job I needed it to do.

I think every part of the fleet worked as intended. I'm looking forward to playing with it again.